July 2, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: Reporter Jack McAvoy Joins the 'Thirty' Club in Michael Connelly's 'The Scarecrow' and a Serial Killer Wants Him Really Dead
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
When we saw Los Angeles Times crime reporter Jack McAvoy in Michael Connelly's 1996 novel "The Poet" he was pursuing a serial killer -- and almost got killed himself. McAvoy appeared again in a standalone Connelly novel -- i.e., non-Harry Bosch -- "The Narrows" in 2004.
Fast forward to 2009. McAvoy is still at the Gray Lady of Spring Street in "The Scarecrow" (Little, Brown and Co., 448 pages, $27.99), but barely: He's been given a pink slip in a downsizing that reduces the once very sizable newsroom by another 100 reporters and editors. (Full disclosure: I was a reporter at the Los Angeles Times from March 1976 to August 1990).
To add insult to injury, after Richard Kramer, an assistant managing editor at the paper tells McAvoy of his fate, Jack's instructed to train his replacement, a lovely young blonde named Angela Cook with only a few years on the job as a reporter.
Angela, despite having a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida -- Connelly's alma mater -- doesn't understand old school McAvoy when he tells her he's joining the "Thirty Club." New school Angela probably has never seen a typewriter and doesn't know that old-time reporters typed "-30-" at the end of their stories.
McAvoy gets a call from the grandmother of 16-year-old Alonzo Winslow, a black drug dealer and gang member who lives in a South Central L.A. housing project. She's calling to object to a brief McAvoy story on Winslow, which doesn't name him because he's a juvenile, that accuses him of the brutal rape murder of a white exotic dancer found in the trunk of her car in Santa Monica, 20 miles from Winslow's apartment. A fingerprint on the rear view mirror of her 1999 Mazda ties Alonzo to the car theft.
As Angela and Jack work on the story, it turns out that Winslow had signed a confession admitting to stealing Denise Babbit's car, not knowing it had the owner's body in the trunk. Babbit may have been at the project scoring drugs, when Winslow sees a target of opportunity in the Mazda and a handbag with money on the front seat.
Angela finds links to a website on trunk murders and she and Jack run with the story. This could be the best story since McAvoy tracked down The Poet, which made his career in the previous century. He doesn't realize that he's up against a foe that's even more dangerous. What neither reporter knows is that their adversary is tracking their every move on the Internet from a web server farm in suburban Phoenix. It's a wired world after all.
On a trip to Nevada, McAvoy has a reunion with FBI agent Rachel Walling, with whom he worked on the story of The Poet 13 years before and with whom he had a relationship that harmed Walling's career. They soon realize that their foe -- a man they later discover is nicknamed The Scarecrow -- will do everything to keep them from the real story behind Babbit's death and that of a showgirl in Las Vegas, who died in a manner strikingly similar to Babbit.
Connelly is at the top of his form in "The Scarecrow." Born in Philadelphia in 1956, he was a reporter on three newspapers -- two in Florida, where he grew up and the Los Angeles Times -- before he quit to become a best-selling mystery novelist. And yes, Harry Bosch fans, your favorite LAPD detective will be making another appearance this October in "Nine Dragons." There's an excerpt from the novel at the end of "The Scarecrow."
Author's website: www.michaelconnelly.com
Publisher's website: www.hachettebookgroup.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
BOOK REVIEW: Reporter Jack McAvoy Joins the 'Thirty' Club in Michael Connelly's 'The Scarecrow' and a Serial Killer Wants Him Really Dead
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
When we saw Los Angeles Times crime reporter Jack McAvoy in Michael Connelly's 1996 novel "The Poet" he was pursuing a serial killer -- and almost got killed himself. McAvoy appeared again in a standalone Connelly novel -- i.e., non-Harry Bosch -- "The Narrows" in 2004.
Fast forward to 2009. McAvoy is still at the Gray Lady of Spring Street in "The Scarecrow" (Little, Brown and Co., 448 pages, $27.99), but barely: He's been given a pink slip in a downsizing that reduces the once very sizable newsroom by another 100 reporters and editors. (Full disclosure: I was a reporter at the Los Angeles Times from March 1976 to August 1990).
To add insult to injury, after Richard Kramer, an assistant managing editor at the paper tells McAvoy of his fate, Jack's instructed to train his replacement, a lovely young blonde named Angela Cook with only a few years on the job as a reporter.
Angela, despite having a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida -- Connelly's alma mater -- doesn't understand old school McAvoy when he tells her he's joining the "Thirty Club." New school Angela probably has never seen a typewriter and doesn't know that old-time reporters typed "-30-" at the end of their stories.
McAvoy gets a call from the grandmother of 16-year-old Alonzo Winslow, a black drug dealer and gang member who lives in a South Central L.A. housing project. She's calling to object to a brief McAvoy story on Winslow, which doesn't name him because he's a juvenile, that accuses him of the brutal rape murder of a white exotic dancer found in the trunk of her car in Santa Monica, 20 miles from Winslow's apartment. A fingerprint on the rear view mirror of her 1999 Mazda ties Alonzo to the car theft.
As Angela and Jack work on the story, it turns out that Winslow had signed a confession admitting to stealing Denise Babbit's car, not knowing it had the owner's body in the trunk. Babbit may have been at the project scoring drugs, when Winslow sees a target of opportunity in the Mazda and a handbag with money on the front seat.
Angela finds links to a website on trunk murders and she and Jack run with the story. This could be the best story since McAvoy tracked down The Poet, which made his career in the previous century. He doesn't realize that he's up against a foe that's even more dangerous. What neither reporter knows is that their adversary is tracking their every move on the Internet from a web server farm in suburban Phoenix. It's a wired world after all.
On a trip to Nevada, McAvoy has a reunion with FBI agent Rachel Walling, with whom he worked on the story of The Poet 13 years before and with whom he had a relationship that harmed Walling's career. They soon realize that their foe -- a man they later discover is nicknamed The Scarecrow -- will do everything to keep them from the real story behind Babbit's death and that of a showgirl in Las Vegas, who died in a manner strikingly similar to Babbit.
Connelly is at the top of his form in "The Scarecrow." Born in Philadelphia in 1956, he was a reporter on three newspapers -- two in Florida, where he grew up and the Los Angeles Times -- before he quit to become a best-selling mystery novelist. And yes, Harry Bosch fans, your favorite LAPD detective will be making another appearance this October in "Nine Dragons." There's an excerpt from the novel at the end of "The Scarecrow."
Author's website: www.michaelconnelly.com
Publisher's website: www.hachettebookgroup.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
